Coelum Terrae

Sources and Editorial Credits

The following records distinguish the 1650 textual basis, its modern transcription, the surviving comparison copy and the later collected reprint. Historical page numbers in the reading refer to the 1650 volume. Web records and digitised copies were consulted for this edition in October 2026.

The 1650 Text and the TCP Transcription

Thomas Vaughan, writing as Eugenius Philalethes. Magia Adamica, or The Antiquitie of Magic, with the added discovery of Coelum Terrae. London: printed by T. W. for H. Blunden, 1650. EEBO-TCP A64768; Wing V151; ESTC R203905; EEBO image set 115898; British Library Thomason witness 174:E1299[1]. University of Michigan text: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A64768.0001.001 . The selected Coelum discourse begins on printed page 78; its source locators distinguish this witness from the Getty pages.

The TCP TEI header identifies a diplomatic transcription rather than a critical edition, records electronic publication in March 2009 and releases the Phase I transcription for reuse under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ . Credit is due to the EEBO Text Creation Partnership and its contributing institutions. Encoded gaps and foreign-language omissions in the transcription require examination of source evidence; they are not authority to omit a passage in a new edition.

The Getty Research Institute Copy

Thomas Vaughan. Magia Adamica, with Coelum Terrae. London, 1650. Getty Research Institute, call number 372004; Internet Archive identifier magiaadamicaoran00vaug, ARK ark:/13960/t7fr0pk07. Digitisation: https://archive.org/details/magiaadamicaoran00vaug . The catalogue describes this copy as imperfect, with title and other early leaves and gathering G wanting, and notes repeated gathering F. It is therefore a witness with stated limitations, not an intact copy of the entire host volume. Its surviving Coelum pages 79–140 provide first-edition image evidence, including the poems and concluding doxology. The final errata leaf is missing from this copy, so the relevant printed corrections are taken from the TCP witness, with that limitation stated. Credit: Getty Research Institute, digitised through Internet Archive.

The Later Wellcome Comparison

Thomas Vaughan. The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan, edited with translations, biographical preface and essay by Arthur Edward Waite. London: George Redway, 1888. Wellcome Collection work dr6u75bj; digitisation b24868279. Record: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dr6u75bj . IIIF manifest: https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v2/b24868279 . This later reprint is a comparison and a record of nineteenth-century reception, not the governing witness or the source of the new foreign-language translations. Credit: Wellcome Collection; its digitised historical material is marked Public Domain.

Authorities Quoted Within the Work

Coelum Terrae cites or invokes Scripture, Hermes, Orphic and Chaldaean material, Reuchlin under the name Capnion, Agrippa, authors and works attributed to Arnold of Villanova, Lully, Albertus Magnus, Flamel and Paracelsus, and other alchemical testimonies. The present edition translates the passages as they occur in Vaughan’s work. A historical attribution is retained as an attribution; the list does not claim that each named figure authored the precise wording or work Vaughan received. Notes identify specific parallels when the evidence permits.

Diotimos Editorial Contributions

The modern English reading, fresh foreign-language translations, introduction, annotations, interpretive essays, glossary, contextual lexicon, guides, reading routes and subject index were prepared for Diotimos Editions in 2026. Editorial divisions and commentary remain distinct from the historical discourse. The English-only reading EPUB contains the same complete modern reading and supporting material; the parallel edition also includes the historical wording.

The scope is the complete Coelum Terrae discourse and its included historical ending, rather than the whole Magia Adamica volume. References to earlier Vaughan works or to the host’s earlier pages identify context; they do not silently insert other works into this edition. The source note records textual uncertainty where it affects a reading.